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Learning Chords Vs. Scales for beginners
- Thread starter bassion
- Start date
What are the best fingers to use for metal?
Index and pinkie aka- devils horns of course.
Read through the lessons on this site. He explains it better than anyone here.
Online Bass Lessons at StudyBass.com
And don't take it so seriously despite what other people here think. Use your ear more than anything.
All things being equal if there were stricter moderation you'd get a slap on the wrist for discussing it in public.
Or do you consider some more equal than others?
Moderation would help keep threads on topic instead of getting 10 guys arguing about how their extensive curriculum for learning the bass is the only one (and some of them probably don't even teach). These kinds of threads end up being for the self-gratification of people not really addressing the OP's question, or briefly addressing it then hijacking the thread to show off how much they know.
In an open forum you take the good with the bad. What you're talking about sounds more like something approaching a group blog. If it were possible to have truly impartial, participatory moderation I might be more inclined to agree with you but the reality is the moderators here are spread far too thin for anything other than superficial participation and have no education in impartial adjudication.
Being in an original band I spend lots of time listening. I listen to everything from the singing to the drums. This listening eventually creates a sonic playground for me to play in. I love trying to make the bass and vocals work together. That to me is the essence of a great bass line. I would be lost without the yeats of musical training and theory.
On the web there is no such thing as impartial because world-wide, it serves to bring us closer but really just highlights how far away we are from each other sometimes in physicallity and thought.
On the web there is no such thing as impartial because world-wide, it serves to bring us closer but really just highlights how far away we are from each other sometimes in physicallity and thought.
And that variety of perspective is what I love about a forum like this.
Personally I think folks often take stuff too personal if someone disagrees with them in some of these discussions. I look at it as this: I'm discussing or sometimes debating a point, NOT the person who wrote it. This means there will occasionally be disagreement, but if its kept civil, then the discussion can be very educational and bring out new ideas. I like it if there's a long thread with lots of back and forth. The topic evolves. That's the point of discussion. If everyone agreed (or disagreed ad-nauseum) and had nothing new to add to the original topic, then its not really much of a discussion anymore.
It doesn't bother me a bit if it strays "off-topic" to a degree, particularly when the original topic of the discussion has been pretty much debated to death and there's nothing new to add. If someone does have something new to add into the original topic, there's absolutely nothing stopping them.
I find it pretty ironic that someone stops into a thread and complains about how the thread sucks and/or is too off topic. If someone doesn't like it, either steer it back to topic by posting something relevant, or go look at another thread.
It doesn't bother me a bit if it strays "off-topic" to a degree, particularly when the original topic of the discussion has been pretty much debated to death and there's nothing new to add. If someone does have something new to add into the original topic, there's absolutely nothing stopping them.
I find it pretty ironic that someone stops into a thread and complains about how the thread sucks and/or is too off topic. If someone doesn't like it, either steer it back to topic by posting something relevant, or go look at another thread.
My book taught scales first. Looking back, it seems like the logical way to do it.
Chromatic scale -> major scale -> major arpeggios
Chromatic scale -> major scale -> major arpeggios
Jimmy's reply was funny but it was also pretty complete.
I'm gonna steal a great line from fingers over on the double bass side: "If you're not getting the answer you want, think about the question."
c4lvint1me said:
I think you need to expand on that question. 3 note chord = 3 fingers etc....
Unless you're strumming the strings.
Is that what you're looking for?
OK left hand or right hand???
Just asking such a question without application is pointless and you will get responses in dribs and drabs with no real focus.
So here is a link to one of many great book retails sites out there.
Amazon.co.uk: bass chord book
So ask the correct question and you will get a correct reply, or just Google, Bass Guitar Chords, and trawl through the vast information at your fingertips.
I'd have to answer that with "whatever you have available at the time, based on the inversion you want to use". If you want the chord to be simple and compact, use the standard fingerings but if you want to open it up with extremely wide intervals, you can fret the low notes with your fretting hand and add others with your other hand, like Roscoe Beck and others do.
I used to read about a book by Neil Steubenhaus being the go-to book for bass instruction but I'm sure there are many more good ones since then. If you see a variety of methods for learning bass (or any instrument), read several and take what you can from all of them. There's no one "right" answer here. If you want to be well-rounded, you'll need proficiency in scales, arpeggios and chords. If you learn chords and arpeggios but not scales, Murphy's Law says that you'll need to know scales when you're not prepared. Same goes if you omit one of the others. If you listen to walking bass lines, you'll hear all three and since the bass line is often whether the chord used is a major, minor, 5th, 7th, 9th or other inversion.
[QUOTE=younggun;11552040
Personally I think folks often take stuff too personal if someone disagrees with them in some of these discussions. I look at it as this: I'm discussing or sometimes debating a point, NOT the person who wrote it. This means there will occasionally be disagreement, but if its kept civil, then the discussion can be very educational and bring out new ideas. I like it if there's a long thread with lots of back and forth. The topic evolves. That's the point of discussion. If everyone agreed (or disagreed ad-nauseum) and had nothing new to add to the original topic, then its not really much of a discussion anymore.
It doesn't bother me a bit if it strays "off-topic" to a degree, particularly when the original topic of the discussion has been pretty much debated to death and there's nothing new to add. If someone does have something new to add into the original topic, there's absolutely nothing stopping them.
I find it pretty ironic that someone stops into a thread and complains about how the thread sucks and/or is too off topic. If someone doesn't like it, either steer it back to topic by posting something relevant, or go look at another thread. [QUOTE=younggun;11552040
WHAT! LMAO! WHAT! This from you? What! 
OK, serious answer...I use the fingers attached to my hands
There is no way to answer that question in a cut and dried one size fits all manner. There are some chords I might only use the first two fingers, some I might use the outer two fingers, some I might use all of them, and any other permutation you can think of. It's highly dependent on 3 things...the chord, what feels the most comfortable, and what you're doing next.
I'm not as seasoned as anyone else on these forums, but I can give you an answer based on what I've been practicing.
Basically, right now, I'm mainly practicing the major scale and chords based off of the major scale. There are, of course, several ways to play the major scale using the formula of R-W-W-H-W-W-W-H. The one I've done the most looks like this:
Code:
G|---|---|---|---| G|---|---|---|---|
D|-6-|---|-7-|-8-| D|-1-|---|-3-|-4-|
A|-3-|-4-|---|-5-| A|-1-|-2-|---|-4-|
E|---|-1-|---|-2-| E|---|-2-|---|-4-|
scale degree i m r pTo play a major triad using that fingering pattern, I use my middle, index and pinky fingers. The middle finger plays the root note (the 1), the index plays the 3rd one string above, and the pinky plays the 5th on the same string that the index used. It looks like this:
Code:
G|---|---|---|---| G|---|---|---|---|
D|---|---|---|---| D|---|---|---|---|
A|-3-|---|---|-5-| A|-i-|---|---|-p-|
E|---|-1-|---|---| E|---|-m-|---|---|
triad using i m r p
scale degreesThat same pattern can be moved all over the neck of the bass as long as you have 3 strings to play it on for the scale or 2 strings for the triad.
Some things I learned by practicing both the scales and the chords (and by reading these forums and books) are:
1. The triad (3-note chord) can be extended in several ways.
2. Adding the 7th makes it a major 7th chord (unless I'm mistaken about the name).
3. The 8th is the octave. You can play the triad and add the octave, or just play the root, 5th and octave, and it doesn't sound bad. Apparently this is something bass players have to do a lot.
4. An inversion is a chord (like that triad) that doesn't follow the pattern of 1-3-5. Its still the same 3 notes, but in a different order, like 3-5-1, or 5-3-1, or anything like that. I think this same idea applies to extended chords.
(Someone please correct me if I'm wrong about any of that... I'm new to this.)
And, finally, I don't know the names of the notes yet. This means that if someone tells me to play a G-major chord, I have to count each note and name it before I can find the one that I need. This also means that I can't name the notes in the scales or chords that I'm practicing. I'm working on that though.
Hope that helps.
